Still coaching, Billingsley remembers 1978, the year he arrived in Plainview

By SKIP LEON Herald Sports Editor

Published
9:41 am CDT, Tuesday, August 6, 2013

When the late Greg Sherwood was looking to fill out his Plainview High School football coaching staff in the spring of 1978, he hired Pat Tone, who had been the head coach at Iowa Park the year before. Tone recommended one of his assistants at Iowa Park. So, in March 1978 Neil Billingsley found himself in Coach Sherwood’s office.

After the interview, Billingsley returned to Iowa Park where he was the head track coach. Sherwood called him on a Friday and asked if he could start work three days later in Plainview. Billingsley coached at a track meet the following day, secured his release from Iowa Park and was at the Plainview fieldhouse at 1 p.m. Monday, April 1, 1978, to begin work. He coached quick tackles and wide receivers for the team.

Now entering his 36th season as a coach for the Bulldogs, Billingsley has vivid memories of his first year. He goes through the lineup of talented players, remembering not only their names and positions, but where they played in college and, in many cases, where they are and what they are doing now.

“They had a lot of talent on the ball club,” Billingsley said of the team that began a run of success for Plainview football. “We had good, big offensive linemen. We had good running backs, a good quarterback. They were wanting to have some success, and when they came in here, they came together as a group. And Coach Sherwood was such a success with them.”

Billingsley remembered the players as a close-knit group of athletes who were friends away from the field as well.

“All those kids were great kids,” Billingsley said. “When they went to do something, all of them were together. They were close. I remember all of them made the statement that they’d probably done some things in the past, but they were gonna make sure that they weren’t gonna do anything to hurt the football team during that season. They were a real close bunch of kids. It was great to work with them.”

For the players, the work began before fall practice. Billingsley said they started working on the newly installed wing-T offense two weeks before the start of fall two-a-day practices. Scott Sherwood, who played quarterback for the Bulldogs that year, knew his dad’s offense and helped the rest of the players learn it before the first day of fall workouts.

Billingsley also remembered some of Greg Sherwood’s motivational tactics. Before a game with Amarillo High School, a wreath decorated with flowers arrived by mail with a message from the Amarillo High football team. It said they were going to bury the Bulldogs. The wreath was put on the team bus for the drive to Amarillo. The message fired up the Plainview players, and they defeated Amarillo High handily.

Billingsley recalled how one of Sherwood’s first orders of business was to bring the Plainview High School band and football players together.

“The band was fixin’ to go out and have their contest,” Billingsley said. “Coach Sherwood had all the varsity football players go up in the stands and have a pep rally for the band. And O.T. Ryan (the band director) broke down and cried because he said nothing had ever happened like that before with a football coach and his kids coming in and having a pep rally for them.”

Sherwood instituted the red dot, which was something he had done in previous coaching stops in Spearman, Dalhart, Kermit and Liberal, Kan. He spoke to civic organizations and passed out red dots.

“Greg went and talked to all the clubs,” Billingsley recalled. “He had a bunch of little dots in an envelope and he just threw them out on the table and said you need to have this if you’re gonna be part of us. He passed those things out. And everybody came closer together because of those dots, I guess. He did so much for the community. Before he left here he was voted Man of the Year. He was really respected a great deal by all the people.”

There was enormous hoopla surrounding the football team, Billingsley recalled. He said one opposing coach compared playing in Plainview to a circus.

“We had the dot. Everybody would put it on their watch or on their glasses,” Billingsley recalled. “Then somebody would dress up like a little man and he would go up on top of the stadium and run up and down during halftime of the ball game. They would also get on a motorcycle and drive around the track with him. He was the red dot.”

Billingsley said Sherwood knew how to get a team in the right frame of mind to play.

“Greg was such a motivator,” the veteran coach said. “He could talk to the kids and get them to do things. He would get them up so high. Those kids loved to play. A lot of kids would run through that wall for him. He was just that kind of person.”

Billingsley reiterated what some of Sherwood’s former players said, that the lessons the coach taught went beyond the football field.

“Greg was great to work with, just a great Christian man,” Billingsley said. “I learned so much from him about putting God first, family second, put your schoolwork third and your athletics fourth. He had priorities. Every Thursday before a game he had some person come in and talk to the varsity kids. They would talk to them about life and how to become better people, and they would use something out of the Bible. It was real inspirational. Greg always walked his walk and talked his talk. I never heard the guy ever use a cuss word the whole time I was around him. He was such a great example.”

Billingsley repeated something Scott Sherwood, the quarterback on that 1978 team, said about his dad.

“Greg said there’s two things that make a town come together,” Billingsley said. “Number one was to have a tornado. And number two was to have a football team.”

The Bulldogs of 1978 were like a tornado in that they demolished just about every team in their path on their way to an 11-2 record and a berth in the state quarterfinals. They were the first football team to win an outright district championship. Twelve players from that team received scholarships to play at the collegiate level.

By all accounts, they were successful on the field and have found success in their lives after their playing days

“Greg said when they got through here, he wanted to see them be successful out in the community,” Billingsley said. “I imagine Greg’s looking down on us, wherever he is today, and he just thinks what a great job he did with all those kids.”

And Coach Bill, as he is affectionately called, continues to work with the young men of the Plainview High School football team, a generation after he came to town and contributed to the Bulldogs’ initial success..